More on Mobile Coffins

I do not quite understand why the today the Times should be revisiting an extremely important but nevertheless such an old story as last Octobers resignation of Major Sebastian Morley.
Major Morley was at the time the most senior reservist SAS officer in Afghanistan,  and resigned because army commanders and Whitehall officials ignored his warnings that [...]

Protectionism! testing the hypocrisy

The government of Great Britain are elected to serve the people of this country and to defend the state. They are paid by the British people to defend our country us our Rights and our interests this includes jobs.
When a foreign owned company grants a construction job in Britain to another foreign owned company, who [...]

Trojan Horse party EU Payment on Hold

The European Parliament has put a decision to grant ” anti-EU treaty” group Libertas funding on hold after it emerged that the group may no longer fulfill the criteria for receiving the money.
The move to grant Libertas status as a European political party, entitling it to around €200,000, had already been taken by parliament officials [...]

PC Fire Service

A new one for me Obnoxio The Clown
Interesting post
Anthony Duggan, head of fire services at the LGA, said: “The fire service needs to be representative of the area it serves.
“It is important that the fire service attracts more women and ethnic minorities so that it can work more effectively in partnership with local authorities [...]

Before Israel Responded.

The European Union has expressed its “grave concern” at Israel’s continuing attacks on the Gaza Strip that have killed close to 300 Palestinians and injured around 900, and called the airstrikes “unacceptable” while calling on both sides to halt military actions.
EUOBSERVER
I could be wrong, but I do not remember “The European Union” [...]

Labour Lies Decite and Spin

With the relatively recent debate in the media about our great presidents comments on Britain joining the Euro, it might be instructive to look a little more closely at the events leading to the ERM debacle, the day Britain left the European exchange-rate mechanism on September 16, 1992, and the Bank of England reputedly [...]

The Wrong Shadow Chancellor??

John Redwood MP » Is it my democratic duty to shop til I drop?
The authorities visited this crunch on us, because they judged we were collectively borrowing too much and spending too much. They hiked the interest rates and later told the banks to lend less for the level of capital [...]

Tongue in Cheek

From Scotland:
It is wrong to condemn the EU for requiring Ireland to have another referendum
This establishes an important principle. If (heaven forbid) Salmond’s rigged referendum on breaking up the UK results in a vote for Scotland to be cast adrift from the security of the UK, no problem. It would then be
clear that [...]

About Borders

NM at Eutopia is worrying about the lack of voter confidence in European political systems and quotes controversial post-Marxian philosopher Slovenian intellectual Slavoj Zizek. NM says some of his ideas are well worth pondering at greater length, not least for those of us interested in the future of Europe.

“Under the illusion that the borders are [...]

On the issue of keeping one Commissioner per country,

Former President of the European Parliament Pat Cox writes that:
“This concession does not require a change to the Lisbon Treaty, which already provides the European Council with the right to decide the number of commissioners, subject to unanimity. What has changed is the spirit in which the rule will be interpreted.”
The spirit or [...]

The Trojan Horse Party

The new Libertas Party, which aims to run candidates in all 27 European Union states for the European Parliament elections in June 2009, says it wants to democratise the European institutions, with an elected commission and a president.
Mr Ganley told reporters on Thursday (11 December) When he insisted that the new party is not anti-EU [...]

EU Parliament votes to end Working Time opt out

Now that the EU Parliament has voted to remove the British opt out from the Working Times Directive against the will of the duly elected British Parliament, perhaps we should consider if the agreement reached at Maastricht should now be repealed in the British parliament, becasue the agreement made in that treaty has been [...]

Conservative running interference for the Federalists

John Redwood asks why the English Democrats stood against David Davis in the by-election, and wonders why they would want to stand against an obvious Eurosceptic or his party, a party which has voted No to Nice, No to Amsterdam and No to Lisbon.

Implying that if they stood against Conservative in a [...]

Cameron Deep Clean

The controversy over the Tory leaders demands that MEP must fill in a right to know form on expenses twice a year, has thrown up an important point;
The Tory MEPs according to the leaked memo are prepared to challenge the idea based on rule two of the EU parliament which says that MEPs have an [...]

Scramble for publicity

Ian Jack looks at the prospects for the Davis campaign in the Guardian he makes a point that has been concerning me since Davis resigned;
Haltemprice will elect David Davis because of his party, but the popularity of his beliefs will remain unproved. As an independent newcomer campaigning for liberty he might struggle, like Miss [...]

If we belive the spin

There is another way of looking at that resignation- it does not make sense for the prospective home sectary to resign in order to fight the government. When all he had to do was to wait a while and he would have been in a position to see through a real defence of civil liberty [...]

Conservatives’ Achilles heel

Note to Shadow Cabinet. Climate Change, and it’s supposed causes, are nowhere on voter’s lists of concerns (apart from a few people who would never vote Conservative in a million years).
By all means teach children about issues like respecting the environment and energy costs but yet another group of politicians preaching about something that many [...]

A Cast Iron Promise from David Cameron.

Today, I will give this cast-iron guarantee: If I become PM a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations. Link
That was David Cameron in September 2007 by the July 2008 less than a year later he is however singing from a different song sheet,
Telegraph

David Cameron [...]

Targeting all opposition

Targeting extremists
From: Richard Corbett, Labour MEP for Yorkshire & Humber.
MIKE Hall is wrong to state that the EU is attempting to stop the Independence and Democracy Group having a say in the European Parliament (Yorkshire Post, May 30).
The measure to which Mr Hall refers is my proposal to raise the threshold needed to form a [...]

Conservatives rise in the polls and EU policies

I woke up this morning with the vague thought that that I should write about the Conservatives recent rise in popularity as revealed in the polls, local elections and Crew, with relation to the effect that recognition might have on what EU policies we can expect from them come the next election.
It is well understood [...]

In Search of The Truth

I feel there is something fishy, something decidedly wrong with the David Aaronovitch piece in the Times this morning. But it is far too early for me to exactly put my finger on his argument; that we should not expect politicians to listen to us, but rather to do what is right.
There is something [...]

Disenfranchised by Conservative Policies

Lord Tebbit trying to help Dave Cameron, suggests he might like to do some sums, in a letter to the Telegraph this morning he says;
The Conservative party of today is trying to find a place for itself within a basically socialist structure,
The figures are clear. At the last election that Labour lost, in 1992, Neil [...]

The Road to nowhere an EU of Nation States

The Conservative party are echoing the views of many when they say they want to work to create a different direction for the EU. They say they would like an EU of Nation States, an EU that respects the existing national boundaries and has fewer areas of competence, and an EU that actually adds value, [...]

The Way we are governed

Two very good posts explaining how the EU is government Britain
The Way we are goverened
The Limits of Power

Britian Leading in the EU

Well good for Mr Brown fighting for the power to make make our own laws in our own parliament! oddly I thought we gave them that power when we elected them, still if they do not want the power to make our laws one is entitled to ask what possible reason could [...]

The Conservatives are navel gazing again

On my desk I have a letter form my own MP who tells me the Conservative party believes that elected representatives should not give up the powers they were elected to wield without asking the people who first elected them. In the modern world, where people want power and control over their lives to deny [...]

The opponents of party democracy

The opponents of party democracy
The story of how the party’s EU enthusiasts fixed the MEP selection process

  The subversion of democracy

What is Jack Straw doing tomorrow?

Today Jack Straw, Secretary for Justice, is consulting throughout the country on a statement of values that define British citizenship and on the case for a full British bill of rights and duties setting out rights and obligations for all citizens.
Is he going to be using the telephone ; internet or has Santa loaned him [...]

“Betrayal Of The Gurkhas”

Good one from Eurosoc
Because the British grumble about the number of asylum seekers in the country (and, more regularly, the hopeless failure of the government to sort out the deserving from the chancers), an outsider could be forgiven for thinking that as a nation, we dislike the idea of allowing foreigners onto our little islands.Nothing [...]

A Simple Ambition for my Country

The leader of the Conservative Party proudly announced that he has a simply ambition for this country. It’s at the heart of what I believe, and what I believe our country needs.
Oh goody he is going to repeal the 1972 act of admission to the EU begin the rebuilding process of our nation state. [...]

Abolishing the Regions

John Redwood has replied to some comments about abolishing the regions;

I want to see all unelected regional government abolished.
The Conservatives will not be abolishing the three elected regional governments in the UK that have been endorsed by referendum, nor the elected tier in Northern Ireland if that is in operation.
The fact that Brussels likes regional [...]

Conservatives Plans at odds with EU ideals

John Redwood has a post ridiculing a glossy brochure sent to him and doubtless many others, by Margaret Hodge, entitled “Creating prosperity in every region: England’s Regional development” Agencies”.

“She tells us the RDAs help to bring prosperity to all parts of England. Nowhere does she point out that the reigonal disparities have grown substantially during [...]

In the Region of Propaganda

Doing a bit of Surfing based on my own draft folder in which I put links that to posts and article and sites which grab my interest, I came across this letter on the Labour Movement for Europe Site
Written by an Administrator and subsequently locked to prevent any chance that someone might [...]

Talk about Cherry Picking

According to Le Figaro, Nicolas Sarkozy has said that a “simplified treaty” would be necessary for the correct “functioning of the institutions” of the EU.
 
He explained that the abolition of national vetoes in EU decision-making was essential, arguing that “It is inconceivable that a single member state, indeed even two, should be able [...]

Unilateral withdrawal from the EU! How Else?

On his blog John Redwood wrote that the Conservatives failed yesterday in the House of Commons to get a commitment to a referendum on part of the Constitution, if they decide to smuggle some of it in by the back door. Mr Redwood says it is typical of this government’s approach. It is also typical [...]

Not really news!

Under the headline Ukip pledges not to fight Eurosceptic MPs the Telegraph builds a story on the fact that Nigel Farage wrote to all MPs to announce that he would no longer field candidates against proven Eurosceptics. The kicker comes in the final paragraph where it states “MPs would have to demonstrate their Eurosceptic credentials [...]

The BNP and an English Parliament

There are many who belive that only way out of the mess Tony Blair has made of the British Constitution is the creation of a separate English parliament, give more power to the Scottish Parliament and to the Welsh Assembly which would then become the Welsh parliament, and then to create a smaller federal style [...]

Three Letters on MP Pay

Telegraph

Old-fashioned MPs
Sir – Are MPs harder working than they were in the Fifties, Sixties or Seventies? My husband, Richard Wood, later Lord Holderness, elected in 1950, was paid a small salary, received a first-class railway ticket to and from London and his constituency and nothing else. He paid for his accommodation in [...]

Reducing the C in conservatism

Always assuming “Conservatism” is not a contradiction in terms!
Many people have been saying for over three years now that the conservative party needs to address its image in the liberal left main stream media. The party needs to get through to the public what being conservative means, it needs to create a tranche of conservatives [...]

Now England wants its independence!

Very strange polling results in the Telegraph,
“an ICM opinion poll for The Sunday Telegraph has found. Independence is backed by 52 per cent of Scots while an astonishing 59 per cent of English voters want Scotland to go it alone.”
68 percent of English voters and 58 per cent of Scottish voters support for [...]

Labour should use EU to split Tories

Anthony Giddens one-time director of the London School of Economic, suggests in an article for Prospect Magazine “Labour should use EU to split Conservatives” at the next election.

Open Europe reports that Giddens “argues that Tony Blair has consistently “avoided spelling out what he thought should be the future of the EU and Britain’s place [...]

The Cost of Red Tape

An excellent article by Jeff Randle in the Telegraph on the cost of doing business in the EU.
I love some of the thoughts:
“For the sad souls who cling to the fast-disappearing hope of that headline ever becoming true, it has been another miserable week. Facts are stripping away the Eurofanatics’ clothing.
Very soon they will stand [...]

The folly of always voting for the lesser evil

A great post by Perry de Havilland

Thinking oustide of the Box

Anatole Kaletsky says the Dave’s not the Tory party “The Conservative Party has not just moved to the left, abandoning Margaret Thatcher and leapfrogging Tony Blair and Gordon Brown on to what David Cameron described as the liberal, progressive mainstream of British politics. No, the Cameron project appears to be far more audacious. He [...]

Good News I think?

The BBC reports on the fringe meetings at Bournemouth (well some of them anyway)

Apparently, the number of Tory MPs who want to withdraw from the EU is growing, thus claims Euro-sceptic MP Philip Davies and David Davies who is one of “six whole” Tory MP members of the Better Off Out group said: [...]

Keeping us all Entertained

Simon Heffer questions whether Dave Cameron and his friends are on the right road although the new approach might be attracting a few younger people to the not the Conservatives, it is doing so at the expense of the core voters, I suspect the Conservative leadership thinking is, that many will bury their concerns and [...]

Not Talking Rubbish

An absolutely fantastic speech by Christopher Booker to the Bruges Group fringe meeting, at the Tory Party Conference, Bournemouth.

You can read the full speech on Eureferendum

For my money Booker should be on the main central stage in Bournemouth, the “Not the Conservative Party” really needs to hear this time and time again, until [...]

Setting the Political Agenda

Eureferendum post says that the political elites have removed many subjects from political discourse.
For instance; “the way different issues are put in separate boxes and treated as if they were entirely unconnected issues. Thus, while “right-wingers” are no longer prepared to talk about “Europe” but will talk about taxes, no one is putting two and [...]

Hurd welcomes new realism on EU from Cameron

In a letter to the FT Douglas Hurd argues that “David Cameron, with his colleagues, certainly understands that the tide of opinion in the European Union, including part of the European Commission, has swung in favour of liberal reform. (This has been clear to some of us for 15 years.) Like all compromises, his decision [...]

Hair Dye and Soft Soap

I was listening to Gardeners Question Time on the BBC this week, one reply was; that although a weak solution of soft soap sprayed onto roses would get rid of an aphids, as soft soap was not an EU recognised insecticide its use would be illegal.
This is one of the problems we face with EU [...]

Conservatives half-brained over the EU

It looks as if the Conservatives are at it yet again; they do seem to live in a dream world in which the EU does not exist and can therefore be ignored, because the EU is a constant source of conflict within the party, the Conservative leadership wish it not be above the political horizon [...]

Deep Authoritarianism

I was astounded last night, whilst watching the BBC`s light hearted political programme “This Week”, when Diane Abbott the left leaning Labour MP and BBC lovey slipped in a comment about the Conservatives, “many Tories hate the European Convention on Human Rights because it is foreign, and that many Tories are deeply authoritarianism and they [...]

EUsceptic comment

The Telegraph hits the jackpot with EUsceptic comment this Easter Monday, with this article
below Daniel Hannan`s comment that you might as well vote for Duck a for all the diference it makes and David Rennie report on Blairs dishonesty over the EU Budget
Impoverished by the EU
(Filed: 17/04/2006)

A billion [...]

Changing our Party – changing our country

In his speech today, David Cameron gave two undertakings that interest me:
A future Conservative government will scrap unelected regional assemblies and give power back to local people.
and ID cards of which he said:
Labour’s plastic poll tax has no place in modern Britain. It’s an ugly monument to the waste, chaos and vanity [...]

IDS was Not That Bad!

This from a blog I read occasionally, I very much agree with the sentiments in fact I twice wrote to the previous Tory leader to make the point that the Tories had to find a way of combating a generally left wing media before they would start to make headway. I would however take [...]

Voters Revolt

This website was born out of deep anger and frustration at a political establishment which over the decades has increasingly treated the British public with contempt.
It explains how our democracy is being eroded – and spells out how together we ordinary people can halt the slide into bureaucratic tyranny.
For a brief [...]

Stay at Home Tory Voters

I see I am not the only one who thinks Cameron is loosing the core vote
Sir – I have voted Conservative at every possible opportunity. I did so because I believe in its inherent principles. I believe in the market and I believe in low taxation. It is on these principles that I will vote [...]

Diddy David insults UKIP

We cannot know if David Cameron’s decision to insult the UK Independence Party, on a morning radio programme yesterday, was a spur-of-the-moment remark or part of a considered strategy. Either way, it was a mistake.
If the Conservatives have a strategy to denigrate UKIP, in the hope of halting the erosion of their own vote, they [...]

Insulated Political Elitism

Today, as the leaders of the Conservtive and Labour parties, meet to discuss ways of stealing our taxes, Dr North at Eureferendum comments on the Hannan article in the Telegraph. Truth be told all the political parties are clamouring to jump on the bandwagon and demand that we the taxpayer support them, why would they not, [...]

Do we really owe them a living?

This morning MEP Daniel Hannan in his regular spot at the Telegraph confronts the idea of state funding for political parties,
 “If there is one thing we politicians agree on, it’s that the rest of you owe us a living. That’s why you should be alarmed that the Labour and Tory leaders are meeting tomorrow [...]

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